Field
Example aspects described herein related generally to chorded data entry systems, and more particularly to an arbitrary surface and finger position keyboard.
Description of Related Art
Even before the invention of the typewriter in 1868, efforts have been made to use finger combinations in a “chorded” arrangement to enter alphanumeric information. FIG. 1 shows an example of a Baudot Keyboard 100, the earliest five key chorded arrangement, which was invented in 1870 by Jean-Maurice-Emile Baudot as a five key alphanumeric entry system for telegraph operators. Using only five keys, the operator could enter 32 unique ‘codes’, which were mapped to corresponding alphanumeric symbols. Such codes were sometimes referred to as Baudot Codes, the precursor of ASCII codes and the source of the term “baud.”
Other common examples of chorded keyboards are stenographic keyboards, which typically include 22 keys, and Braille keyboards, which typically include six or eight keys.
With the advent of computers, a number of attempts have been made to use chorded keyboards (sometimes referred to as “keyers”) for single-handed data entry.
Touch screens have allowed “soft” keyboards to be incorporated into mobile devices. In addition to standard alphanumeric keyboards, a number of attempts have been made to create chorded keyboards using touch screen systems. While the above devices provide one-handed methods for character entry, they all require that the operator contact a specific point, or set of points, with a specific finger, or set of fingers. This “aiming” requirement significantly reduces the speed and ease with which data can be entered.
A different strategy is employed by gesture-based systems, which enable an operator to enter data (and “point”) on a computer or mobile device without employing a standard keyboard. In this context, a gesture is a motion, sensed by a computer, whereby a user moves a hand or finger from a starting point to an end point.
While gesture-based systems enable a user to enter characters without having to aim for a specific point, typically they require that the motion have a traj ectory from a certain starting point to a certain ending point. Thus, to create a gesture, the user must necessarily travel a minimum distance from one point to another. This is unlike a typical physical keyboard, where the only data that must be derived is based on which key is pressed. Because of this, gesture-based systems are significantly slower than physical keyboards.